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good text editor for DOS

Well, it's a generic "software list" question. I thought there won't be a problem even if answer is a few months after the last. Even then, you can jokingly say that "beating a dead horse" is what we usually do here in general, if you catch what I mean. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
 
cjs said:
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And it's certainly much better to post additional information to an existing thread, as it keeps the information together and makes it easier to find.
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This. I would much prefer a necropost to a relevant thread than a new thread that rehashes the same points all over again
 
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Agent Orange said:
Yeah, you are correct. There are lots of dead-end threads here that you could resurrect if you choose.
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Because on this forum the threads are either alive or dead, others have important idle threads stack-up, pinned, or whatever the word is.
Perhaps on a forum covering entire vintage computing a DOS text editor is not an important topic.

On forums where that has more importance, it would get a sticky in a DOS-appropriate subforum and all users making new threads about text editors would be instructed to not do so and check the pinned threads first.
 
Zare said:
Because on this forum the threads are either alive or dead, others have important idle threads stack-up, pinned, or whatever the word is.
Perhaps on a forum covering entire vintage computing a DOS text editor is not an important topic.

On forums where that has more importance, it would get a sticky in a DOS-appropriate subforum and all users making new threads about text editors would be instructed to not do so and check the pinned threads first.
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In my way of thinking 7 years of no action, in this case, more or less makes the thread moot/dead. In the event that some interest does spark, simply open a new thread.
 
Concerning some good DOS text editors: QDOS (Quick DOS) and PC Tools have excellent DOS text editors. And there's always EDLIN.
 
I went through an odd phase in those long ago days where if I wasn't using the Borland IDE or one of the DOS vi clones, I used a DOS version of IBMs ISPF editor. Worked pretty well for what I was doing, had waaay more features that I used, and had a version of REXX built in. You can apparently find it on one of the abandonware sites.
 
eeproks said:
I went through an odd phase in those long ago days where if I wasn't using the Borland IDE or one of the DOS vi clones, I used a DOS version of IBMs ISPF editor.
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I had to look that up out of curiosity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISPF says it's
a software product for many historic IBM mainframe operating systems and currently the z/OS and z/VM operating systems that run on IBM mainframes. It includes a screen editor, the user interface of which was emulated by some microcomputer editors sold commercially starting in the late 1980s, including SPF/PC.
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It includes a section on PC versions and using the mainframe version from PCs which has an "SPF/SE" link which actually links to the SPF/PC article, which links to https://github.com/michaelknigge/spf-editor containing a screen shot of the now-free Windows clone.

The first Wikipedia page also mentions IBM EZ-VU. A Google search brings up some relevant links including https://winworldpc.com/product/ibm-ez-vu-editor/10 which has a screen shot of an IBM DOS editor that looks like all the other ISPF screen shots I saw.

I'm guessing based on what little I know about IBM mainframe and midrange systems that that editor would be completely different from anything I've ever used before - probably quite a learning curve?
 
doshea said:
I'm guessing based on what little I know about IBM mainframe and midrange systems that that editor would be completely different from anything I've ever used before - probably quite a learning curve?
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Yeah...it is it's own (IBM-ish) thing. A somewhat quirky editor + other tools with it's own spin. Like anything else, you get out of it what you put in it.
 
Agent Orange said:
In my way of thinking 7 years of no action, in this case, more or less makes the thread moot/dead.
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I find this somewhat inexplicable, given that the topic itself has been moot/dead (for all but a few people) for decades. Even ignoring that you're making finding all the information harder (starting with, "have I found all the threads—perhaps I should start a new thread to ask for a list of all the threads on a given topic"), that we should have one thread for 32-year-old information and a different thread for the same information when it's 39 years old makes no sense to me.

Agent Orange said:
In the event that some interest does spark, simply open a new thread.
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Or just use the existing thread, and then anybody who wants the background on what's gone before need merely scroll/page back, instead of having to go searching.

Many things are made harder by having multiple threads on the same topic? What is made easier?
 
cjs said:
I find this somewhat inexplicable, given that the topic itself has been moot/dead (for all but a few people) for decades. Even ignoring that you're making finding all the information harder (starting with, "have I found all the threads—perhaps I should start a new thread to ask for a list of all the threads on a given topic"), that we should have one thread for 32-year-old information and a different thread for the same information when it's 39 years old makes no sense to me.


Or just use the existing thread, and then anybody who wants the background on what's gone before need merely scroll/page back, instead of having to go searching.

Many things are made harder by having multiple threads on the same topic? What is made easier?
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Or extract the useful parts of a thread and place it in the little used wiki.
 
cjs said:
I find this somewhat inexplicable, given that the topic itself has been moot/dead (for all but a few people) for decades. Even ignoring that you're making finding all the information harder (starting with, "have I found all the threads—perhaps I should start a new thread to ask for a list of all the threads on a given topic"), that we should have one thread for 32-year-old information and a different thread for the same information when it's 39 years old makes no sense to me.


Or just use the existing thread, and then anybody who wants the background on what's gone before need merely scroll/page back, instead of having to go searching.

Many things are made harder by having multiple threads on the same topic? What is made easier?
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Bottom line here: cjs you seem to be trolling me. A 7 year old thread that has seen no life is, for all practical purposes, dead. Here or anywhere else.
 
I for one do not agree with your bottom line.

If necroposting was inappropriate there would be locked threads around, or warnings not to necropost.
 
Zare said:
I for one do not agree with your bottom line.

If necroposting was inappropriate there would be locked threads around, or warnings not to necropost.
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You can disagree but were not talking about "necroposting" as the subject is a 7 year old dead thread. The custom in the past has been to open a new thread and maybe reference the old one. So what's your point about continuing to lambast me about virtually nothing? Happy New Year to you.
 
doshea said:
I'm guessing based on what little I know about IBM mainframe and midrange systems that that editor would be completely different from anything I've ever used before - probably quite a learning curve?
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I used SPF/PC on my PCs for a while. But my day job at the time was programming COBOL and PL/I on IBM mainframes, so the editor didn't have much of a learning curve.

Over time, I found that if I spend my days using XXX, I want my non-work time using something similar - just to make things easier.
 
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